Florida's "Don't Say Gay" Fuels Anti LGBT on Line

Brave souls protest the law trying to erase us from A Governor that hatched out of Trump's egg 

 Research that analyzed social media posts finds that hateful references to gays, lesbians, and other LGBTQ people surged online after Florida passed a law that bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

References to pedophiles and “ grooming ” rose by more than 400 percent in the month after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” measure was approved, according to a report released Wednesday by the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy groups, and the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit group that tracks online extremism.

The measure, passed by the Florida Legislature on March 8 and signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 28, says school teachers cannot discuss gender identity or sexual orientation with their young students. Supporters have said decisions about talking about sexual orientation should be left to parents, not teachers.  

Critics have said the law sends a hateful message about LGBTQ people.

The researchers who compiled the report found that the 500 most-viewed tweets 

that mentioned “grooming” were viewed more than 72 million times between 

January and July. 

Influential conservatives drove much of the increase, the researchers found, 

through their own

  posts or by liking or forwarding posts from others. They include U.S. Reps.

 Lauren Boebert, 

 R-Colo., Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and DeSantis’ press secretary,

 Christina Pushaw, 

 who was criticized for a social media post in March that compared criticism 

of the bill 

 to pedophilia itself.